Many people worry about protecting their computer. There are so many threats out there that you just can’t be too careful when it comes to the security of your computer and files. No one wants to go through the horror of having their computer stop working. There is the trouble of having to either get it fixed or replace it. You also then have to worry about the data you had on the computer. If you didn’t back it up then it is likely that you will not be able to retrieve any of it. If your computer was infected with a virus or other type of malware, then it’s possible your information was corrupted and even if you could retrieve it, it would be unusable. There are just so many threats out there that everyone needs to have some kind of antivirus protection. However, some people can’t or don’t want to pay for that protection. Admittedly, it is a fairly expensive ongoing cost of owning and using a computer. That is why it is great to have the alternative of antivirus freeware.
Freeware is open license software that anyone can use and distribute. Protection software is some of the most popular and most frequently downloaded of all the freeware available on the internet. The main benefit of this type of software is that it’s free and usually good quality. However, there are some downsides to it as well. The main way that antivirus software protects a computer is by keeping an updated list of known virus files and code and checking every file that tries to gain access to the computer. The disadvantage of free antivirus programs in this scenario is that they may not have as updated a list as some of the premium antivirus programs. Another way antivirus software detects problems that might not be on that updated list is by an autonomous process within the software program. What happens is that when the program does not recognize code from its list of known viruses, it begins to search for code within the incoming file that resembles any problem code. It then runs further tests to see if this incoming file could contain any problems. The disadvantage here for free software is its ability to recognize malicious code that is not on its list may be vastly inferior to the ability of similar premium software. As with most freeware, there are trade-offs that come with free software that you have to be willing to accept.
Antivirus freeware may be an acceptable first line of defense for your computer needs. If you don’t do much downloading and are pretty light user of the Internet then your security needs will not be too extensive.
The Free Computer Protection website also has some additional information that you might find useful.